One of the girls, one of the older girls, Lacey, speaks in a soft tone, “Jenny, you need to get the water from the fridge. One of the bottles of water, and pour it on the wound. Then lie on your stomach and let the air get at it. No shirt or anything touching it. You need to do this now. Don’t touch it with your hands at all. It will be fine so long as it doesn’t get infected.”
“Okay.” She sniffles and moves, making small noises.
Stumbled steps.
A groan.
The fridge—first she bumps into it and then opens it.
Water bottles and food are moved.
The fridge door closes.
The water bottle lid is unscrewed.
Water pours.
A cry fills the air, shaky and weak.
More water drops to the ground.
Actual sobbing.
A gasp as the water bottle falls to the ground.
Stumbled footsteps.
And then it is quiet again. I believe she has passed out from the pain. I only hope it was on her bed.
Jane sighs. “She’s going to die.”
I don’t have a response to that.
Jane is quiet for a moment before whispering again, “What’s your favorite thing in the world?”
I shake my head, not sure I can remember things like that. I make a throaty sound that’s meant to be a chuckle but it comes out too much like a cry. “I think my bar has lowered for any sort of standard. I think being in my bathing suit, sitting in a friend’s pool, with a drink in my hand and the sun on my face, could count as a top favorite now. Before it wouldn’t have even made the list.”
“Mine is the History Channel. I miss it, and I never even noticed I watched it too much. The last thing I saw on there was about the women who were spies for Bletchley Park during the second World War, in England. They were common women to everyone who met them, nine thousand housewives and simple shopgirls, but they ended up being discovered as varying types of geniuses. They saved the British armies from many attacks by code breaking and finding patterns in attacks.” Her voice cracks. “I miss TV.”
I nod, missing everything.
10. The first snowfall
I force myself to do the push-ups and sit-ups. I force it every day. I don’t like exercise, I never have, really, but the weakened state of my body is frightening. I can feel it. I don’t fight him at all anymore. There isn’t any point. He would win, no matter the effort I gave. So I play his game, I say the right things. I don’t even cry anymore. I hate that about myself. I wish I could cry, but I seem unable.
Jane cries more lately. Sometimes when the fridge door is open I see the shock and horror on her face before she realizes I’ve seen it. She makes herself look calm again. We spend all our time huddled in the corner, giving each other private moments when we go to the bathroom. And even then sometimes we remain while the other pees in the dark. There are no boundaries. No walls. No defenses. He has broken them all, our mighty prince. He has torn down anything that stood between him and our total obedience.
“I don’t feel so good.” Jenny speaks softly, her words slurring a little. She’s slowly gotten sicker and sicker. I did suspect infection, but now I think it’s a lack of will to live. I don’t think she’s eating. Rory hasn’t seen her since he beat her mercilessly, still the worst beating I have ever heard in this place.
“You have to eat and drink, Jenny,” Lacey calls out to her. We’ve all been talking more since he nearly killed her. I don’t know about them, but for me the realization that we might be dead no matter how we behave has made me chattier. If I’m dead either way, I’d rather have spent my last days talking to them and not being alone.
“I can’t eat. I just get sick.” Jenny’s voice is so weak I can hardly hear her now.
“She’s dying. She has an infection. There’s no way she’ll make it if he doesn’t come soon,” Jane whispers from her bed.
She opens her fridge and grabs a bottle of water, drinking some and passing the rest to me. I sit in the corner and nod. “I don’t know if it’s infection. It’s been a while since she got hurt, and she said it’s turning to scabs pretty well. I think she’s just giving up.”
In the pale light of the fridge that now seems as bright as the sun, she gives me a weak smile. “It’s not so easy to stay strong here.”
It’s almost as if she has split personalities sometimes. She is strong and brave and almost badass sometimes, and then others she gives in too easily.
There are whispers amongst us, voices and noises of life, but the moment we hear the door we all stop. Like mice freezing when the cat enters the room, we sit and immediately start to pray to a God we don’t believe in. Not anymore.